Fake Jobs Hurt The Real Economy

I am making this old post sticky, for a day or two, because it is relevant to an upcoming post about the dangerous synergy of fake jobs and metrics.

The vast majority of people cannot seem to separate the concept of having a job from income, even in high productivity systems, thereby creating a multitude of problems and perverse incentives.
One of them is the negative impact of fake jobs on the real economy.

So what are ‘fake jobs’ anyway? In my opinion, a jobs is useless if the sudden death of people performing that job would not adversely affect activity necessary for the continuation of human civilization?

Examples of useless jobs include naturopathic and chiropractic doctors, realtors, environmental designers, the vast majority of government employees, the vast majority of private sector workers, cupcake makers, MBAs, most accountants, most architects, flower shops, the majority of lawyers, CEOs and banksters. Their jobs, professions and businesses are not necessary for the maintenance or progress of human civilization.

Their only contribution to humanity comes from their ability to consume products and services, and is the main reason behind my idea of a Minimum Consumption Entitlement.

So, how do fake jobs hurt the real economy?

They do so in two ways.-

1. They divert resources and talent away for areas that are actually useful.

Would you become a scientist or an engineer if it was possible to make far more money in areas like banking, law or management? What percentage of our economy is based on financial bullshit, legal scams and other assorted nonsense? Do you really think that this shift has no adverse consequences?

2. They hinder and disrupt the progress of those who do productive and innovative things.

We have entire industries based around stealing from the productive (corporate law), abusing them (MBAs) and fucking the over (banksters). These scumbags work in concert with a government which is captive to their interests and a bureaucracy which is filled with greedy, short-sighted, power-hungry morons.

In my opinion, paying people who currently have fake jobs to not do them would lead to a better, and less fucked up, world.

My definition of a fake job is slightly different: a job that wouldn’t exist if not for political pressure. So, for example, diversity coordinator for a corporation is obviously a fake job; sales for that same corporation is not. Like/respect sales or not, it’s something that has to be done and adds value for independent reasons.

Many accounting/law type roles skirt the line because, although theoretically they seem like things any organization will need, the vast majority of what such people actually deal with is politically-ginned-up B.S. which, if it weren’t for the government’s stupid rules/regulations, would require 10x fewer workers to handle.

Banksters is another such example; if not for the government’s stupid meddling and regulating of the economy, there would be far fewer ways to ‘fuck people over’, nor would wealth need to pay armies of MBAs to invent those ways, because they’d be able to get decent returns putting their money to work in far more transparent and productive ways.